I loved the look at the complications of long-term friendship and how you can love someone and have mixed feelings about them as well. I thought Wolitzer (a writer I'd never really warmed to before this) did a marvelous job with the wanderings about in time and changing viewpoint from character to character. Darn solid characterization and relationships. And isn't that cover gorgeous?
While looking online for the cover artist info, I was reminded of the fascinating piece that Meg Wolitzer wrote last year for the New York Times called The Second Shelf: On the Rules of Literary Fiction for Men and Women which discussed how literary fiction by women authors tends to get dismissed as "women's fiction" and literary fiction by men is held in higher regard. Much discussion on this topic emerged, and Bookslut, one of the best literary blogs, talked to Wolitzer about it in their interview with her this year. Fascinating reading!
By the way, cover artist info is surprisingly hard to find online! I will add the cover artist info as soon as I can get a copy of the book into my actual hands.